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<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate and report the lived experiences of parents of twice exceptional (2e) children, utilizing participatory action research (PAR) methods. The primary question this study sought to answer was how parents of 2e children feel about parenting their children. A total of 20 parents participated in a PAR group and conducted research through telling their own stories, participating in a one-on-one interview, conducting a parenting survey, and developing artifacts for educating others about the characteristics and needs of 2e persons. The duration of this study was 12 months, during which time, the PAR members met monthly for three to four hours per meeting. </p><p> Key findings of this study indicate: 2e persons see themselves as a distinct special needs group; there are common characteristics and behaviors among 2e persons; 2e persons are a marginalized community; there is a lack of knowledge about 2e persons among academic, medical, and therapeutic professionals, consequently, parents of 2e children do not feel they can rely on them for support; parents of 2e children feel their children are often rejected and ostracized by others; they struggle to find ways to help their children be accepted by their extended family, community, and society at large; parents of 2e children experience high levels of stress as they work to mitigate societal barriers to their children's success; forming a community of like-minded parents offered the best form of support; while the PAR group realities were different from the idealized model, it offered an appropriate method for gathering data on parenting 2e children, as members felt comfortable researching with their community, rather than being objects of research; PAR group members saw themselves as activists and developed strategies for advocating for 2e persons.</p><p> These findings have implications for parents, educators, and medical/therapeutic practitioners, as they serve to illuminate characteristics, issues, and possible solutions for advocating and serving the needs of 2e persons. This study may also serve as a model for further PAR research, as it discusses the reality of the members' PAR experiences, compared with the suggested ideal PAR methods found in the literature.</p>

Teacher retention has become an increasing problem in todays school systems. This vast amount of teacher turnover, or teachers leaving the field prior to retirement, is largely due to dissatisfaction with their jobs in the teaching field. There are a multitude of reasons why teachers become dissatisfied or frustrated with their jobs as educators, but it can be concluded that the initial reason for dissatisfaction in the field of education are the poor working conditions that exist for teachers (Halstead, 2013). Increased rates in attrition have also impacted the professional field of early childhood teaching. It is my objective to identify what aspects of the induction process, if any, are being implemented in early childhood classroom; as well as identifying the most beneficial aspects on teacher retention. A mixed method survey of a subset of 48 alumni from the LSU PK-3 program will be sampled using the online survey tool, Qualtrics, focusing on the teacher induction program. Data will be analyzed for trends related to teacher induction practices, as well as, most occurring environmental influences, in accordance with the literature in this area. Results will inform the field of early childhood education on practices that will contribute to keeping early childhood teachers in the classroom.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relevance of a curriculum that embodies the charism of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in a post-modern world. The project will investigate the understanding of the charism both by the researcher and by selected brothers who are in unique positions to articulate and explicate just what the charism entails. A variety of formational and foundational documents will also be subjected to philosophical analysis so a deep picture of the charism is available to the reader. Literature surrounding post-modernist curriculum theory serves as the theoretical framework for this investigation of the charism of the brothers. Insights from a variety of post-modern educational researchers will be placed in dialogue with the charism in order to consider the driving research question: "What relevance does the educational Charism of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart have in a post-modern society?$quot The study uses methods consistent with the post-modern framework: philosophical analysis; interviews, primarily oral histories, with selected Brothers of the Sacred Heart whose experience puts them in a position to offer insights into the charism; and narrative inquiry on those interviews collected from selected brothers. Students graduating from a Brothers of the Sacred Heart school like that in which this researcher works enter a world whose driving paradigm is a post-modern one. The curriculum which they have experienced is, however, in many ways, modern, and even pre-modern. Nevertheless, this study concludes that the written and oral descriptions of the charism of the brothers, as well as the ways that it is in fact found to be practiced in their schools, is consistent with broad characteristics of the post-modern perspective. Especially as the brothers emphasize an openness to student growth, and as they seek to embody a curriculum based on hope, trust, compassion and love, they represent an approach to education that is implicitly post-modern. If education in the charism is to remain relevant, a curriculum must be envisioned that nurtures and ever more deeply embodies those post-modern characteristics.

This dissertation examines the surviving archival evidence from several 19th century prominent West Feliciana families found in the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC) at the LSU libraries in an effort to understand how Louisianans value and support education. The antebellum period was chosen for study because it was arguably the last time period in which the South was not influenced or controlled by the dominant narrative of the Common School Movement, which Wayne Urban (1981) refers to as the phenomenon of Massachusetts Myopia. The archival collections containing correspondence from the immediate family of Lewis Stirling, Sr. and their extended family, the Turnbulls and the Bowmans, were chosen in part because they represented the leading families from West Feliciana Parish during the antebellum period. Their correspondence provided a broad spectrum of educational events, styles, and methods from the antebellum period from which to draw evidence supporting the claim of Louisianans long standing commitment to education. The correspondence of Rachel OConnor, a neighbor of the Stirlings, was also analyzed in an effort to provide more information on the topic from the perspective of female education. A combination of phenomenological, narrative, and historiographical research methods to better tease out an understanding of the value they placed on education. The archival evidence showed evidence of a wide variety of educational methods and venues, but also revealed a strong familial and community commitment and concern for the education of the children and youths of the family. This strong evidence of the importance placed on education challenges the current stereotype of Louisianans as poorly educated people who care little about education.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that would influence freshmen college students to remain in school by using an experimental design of rap sessions with low socio-economic, low achieving first-year college students in a control and experimental group. The sample consisted of 39 students in the control group and 27 students in the experimental group randomly selected from 190 newly recruited students for the 1985-1986 academic year at a junior college in Selma, Alabama. Information was gathered from the students and their parents, from the students' academic files in the registrar’s office, the financial aid office, academic special services office, and personal interviews of the students. The information is limited to that which was written on the required forms housed in the various offices mentioned above, and that which was obtained directly from the students. Specifically this Study concerned itself with two questions: What are the characteristics of those students who drop out of college? And, what are the characteristics of those who do not drop out? The variables considered in this study consisted of father and mother income level, father and mother educational-level, the student's academic ability, and the student's career aspiration. The findings revealed that students of low socio-economic, low educational background are looking for any excuse to drop out of school. Those who drop out do so because of many small home problems ranging from the need to aid in the support of the family; pressure from family members to be at home instead of seeking a college education; parents' lack of encouragement, coupled with the parent(s)' feeling that if the child is educated they lose the child's respect; the need for said student to be at home to take care of her child, and the lack of a pursued or desired career. All of the above are enhanced due to no caring advisor in whom to confide. Those who stay in school are encouraged by parents to make something out of themselves; they come with some idea of what they are striving towards in life for a career. In addition to the above the positive advisor, giving time to the task of advising, becoming a mentor of the students being advised, going the extra mile to seek out any given student for advising and the immediacy of causing the above to happen, strengthens the student's desire to stay in school. When the parent(s) educational background and income were observed, it was revealed that both areas contributed to the student's staying in school, but only in conjunction with the lack of parents being able to expose the students to the tools of learning at an early age, and from the pressure of the parent(s) who needed the student's help in bringing in some form of income to assist the family in their needs. Thus, the students come with many needs beyond academics. The need to be encouraged, built up to believe in themselves, that life can be better, that they should stick to obtaining an education, that there are ways of working out their problems, that someone is concerned and cares about them. The format of the rap session made a significant difference in those of the experimental group who did not drop out versus those of the control group who received no treatment and thus dropped out in a significantly greater number.